Snark Bytes: Meta Outsources Truth to the Masses. What Could Go Wrong?

In a bold move to redefine fact-checking (or, let’s be real, fact-sprinkling), Meta today shared details about rolling out Community Notes so that random internet users can police misinformation on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Inspired by X’s Community Notes, this system ensures that the most helpful explanations—determined by people who usually disagree—will be added to posts. Because if two people from opposite echo chambers decide something is true, that definitely makes it objective.

Meta assures us that this isn’t “majority rules,” but rather, a system where enough opposing viewpoints magically align to produce unbiased truth. This should go super well on a platform where debates over pineapple on pizza still spark wars. Plus, notes won’t impact a post’s visibility, unlike that totally flawed expert fact-checking system they just scrapped. So now, if misinformation spreads, at least it’ll do so with an optional fun fact attached.

And don’t worry, the rating system is “based on X’s open-source algorithm”—a phrase that should inspire exactly zero confidence. But hey, at least Meta’s taking its time to “get this right,” meaning the program will go through an extensive beta before they decide that, like every other Meta feature, it’ll be thrown at the algorithm and left to fend for itself. Looking forward to the first helpful note explaining that Mark Zuckerberg is not actually a lizard… or is he?